“How bad do you REALLY want a house in Vancouver? Part of being an adult is making sacrifices.”

The following comments found below the article ‘Would-be homebuyers shocked at Vancouver prices’[CBC.ca 12 Mar 2012] that deals with a local couple with $315K to spend seeking a 2 bedroom condo somewhere in Vancouver:

“I read the comments here [at CBC.ca] and it reminds me of what everyone was saying 20 years ago…it’s too expensive, nobody can afford it…
20 years ago we bought in E Van for 300 grand, at 12 percent interest! That was a mortgage of 2700 a month. The same money today pays easily 600,000.
Give up all the crap you don’t need like car payments, vacations, fancy restaurants, fancy clothes, electronic this and thats and you’ll have the money.
It’s just a matter of priorities. How bad do you REALLY want a house in Vancouver?”
– kdrkim, 13 Mar 2012 12:44pm

“No sympathy here. Part of being an adult is making sacrifices. Everything you want isn’t always in your budget so you have to decide what is truly important to you and go after those things rather than sitting there complaining about how it’s someone else’s fault.”
– nsrv726, 13 Mar 2012 12:46pm

“I would like to be able to have this in East Van? Is that too much to ask?”
“Yes, that is too much to ask.
You want a Mercedes at a Chevy price. And yes, that is too much to ask.”
– CBCFanzine, 13 Mar 2012 9:28pm

“I think it’s unfair the cost of Ferraris are out of my reach. It’s not fair that I have to settle for a Honda.”
– ClosetIguana, 13 Mar 2012 8:18pm

“According to the graph he is making considerably less than the median income and he wants to live buy a place in downtown Vancouver or East Vancouver so he can be ‘be close to his friends’.
He thinks like a 12 year old haha.”
– cbcbcc, 13 Mar 2012 6:36pm

“Buddy has a choice to make: get a job that pays more money or move to a community he can afford. So tired of these whiners. Why does CBC put these ‘entitled’ people on the air? This guy is no victim.”
– jawardwinner, 13 Mar 2012 2:30pm

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These comments headlined here for their common theme, that of “Those who complain about high housing prices in Vancouver simply have unrealistic expectations”.The statement is disarming; it makes those who point to the housing bubble seem like spoiled children, they stand accused of being “entitled”.This is convenient for those who seek a continuation of the status quo. The implication is that folks should stop being critical and get with the program (and prop up the market). The proponents often encourage prospective buyers to “work harder” but, of course, what they really mean is “borrow more”. Housing prices in Vancouver are most definitely not driven by earnings, they are driven by high leveraged borrowing.Bubbles, by their very nature, overtly and covertly ‘conspire’ to perpetuate themselves; it’s hard to criticize them when they’re underway without looking superficially like a partypooper or a whiney brat. – vreaa

64 responses to ““How bad do you REALLY want a house in Vancouver? Part of being an adult is making sacrifices.””

I hear this a lot from senior colleagues: “Suck it up kids: when I bought a house 30 years ago, it was very expensive too!”. Sorry oldies, but the data does not support your claims. Yes interest rates were higher, but price to income, price to rent, and Vancouver prices vs USA prices were never this far out of whack.

Also, you can’t just compare monthly payments 30 years ago to monthly payments today, because that does not price in risk. Today interest rates have nowhere to go but up, so one must price in the risk of higher interest rates 5 years down the road. 30 years ago interest rates were at historical highs, so there was less of a need to price in that risk.

Sorry Jeff but Vancouver isn’t the same city that it was 30 years ago. It was a backwater then and that is why middle class people could buy in the actual city. It is now a fantastic place to live with so many amenities which is why everyone wants to live in the city proper but no longer can that many people afford it. Suck it up and get on with your life

I’d argue that Vancouver had a lot more going for it 30 years ago. Some big head offices here, including a major airline. You say it’s fantastic living here. How so, compared to 30 years ago? More sushi places, coffee shops and pet grooming places, I suppose. The one thing everyone points to about Vancouver is the setting and scenery. I’d argue that it was better 30 years ago. Oh, and wasn’t there a real estate crash around then as well.

Cathy Cooper:“…Well, I got the amp. My point is reality has to figure into everyone’s plans and sometimes that means doing what we’d really rather not while we are working towards what we’d really rather have….. like, gasp; moving to the ‘burbs”.

Mordecai:“Many years ago, my wife and I shopped for our first house. We couldn’t afford a decent house in Vancouver, so we – gasp! – bought in a suburb. That wasn’t considered national news at the time”

DirtyMariner:“Our provincial and federal governments have, through a series of greedy moves, transformed much of this province, especially Vancouver and Victoria, into an investment bank for overseas multimillionaires.
There are no restrictions on foreign land ownership which is shameful, and now you have people making SIX FIGURES who can’t afford to own a home in Vancouver”.

Meggsy:“It changed in Gold Coast Australia. Non residents can’t buy. Period.
I don’t know why it is taking so long for that to happen in Canada?!”

NavyChick:“Ah yes, gotta love my generation: “Why can’t I have exactly what I want, where I want and when I want it!”

reader22:“While Vancouver prices for detached homes ARE extremely high, I am having a hard time feeling sympathy for the guy in this story.
I live in Vancouver, in a house I bought with my spouse. But my first home purchase was a one bedroom condo in an old, slightly shabby, wood frame building in Richmond, the suburb immediately south of Vancouver. I commuted downtown to work every day on the bus. It wasn’t great, but it got me into the market albeit at the bottom of it.
Our next purchase was a fixer-upper older home in Burnaby, also a suburb. Again I commuted to downtown on public transit. Now, many years later, we have a house in Vancouver. We didn’t expect to buy our dream home as our first purchase; we moved up in stages. Luke Brocki doesn’t want to commute and doesn’t like the suburbs. Fine then. Keep renting in the trendy parts of Vancouver. But don’t complain that you can’t afford a home. You CAN. You just don’t want to compromise”.

well basement, you may actually get your wish. most of us have always contended (and still do) that higher rates aren’t prerequisite to a sustained decline. this thing is totally on fumes now anyway. guess what? UST yields look like they could be breaking out. ergo, we may be at the too big to bail moment. imagine rates spiking as this thing starts accelerating downhill.

Oh sweet, I saw that yesterday on the news too, that US bond yields are rising (albeit still crazy low but maybe the direction is shifting). Will it translate into higher Canadian mortgage rates? Once can dream.

several seasoned observers have said something seems to have changed. rates are crazy low but everything is similarly crazy-leveraged. not if, but when the fed can no longer hold down UST yields, all hell will break loose. remember, nothing was fixed from the 2008 blow up, the euro mess, etc. and things are actually more fragile. so, definitely expect more and bigger shocks to keep coming, until root causes are attended to. nassim taleb’s conscience made him go on cnbc to pimp ron paul – that’s where we’ve gotten to. any sort of firewalling can banks and the boc may have erected will be like those little 6′ storm surge walls facing the jp tsunami.

Here is an example of how people are so obsessed with real estate in Vancouver.

This morning, The Economist posted this comment, with a link to an article, on their facebook page:

“Canadians are thrilled whenever foreigners single out their country for positive attention. The idea that Iceland might want to ditch its battered krona in favour of the Canadian dollar, not the American version, scores high in this regard. Economists say there are few technical problems in Iceland abandoning the krona and adopting the loonie, as the Canadian currency is known. But is it a serious proposition?”

And here is what somebody responded:

“Yeah, we are just ecstatic when our country is singled out ‘for positive attention.’ Particularly because generally, the attention we get is so negative. You know, with Vancouver always rated as the worst place in the world to live; our dire economic situation and crashing real estate prices; awful standard of living; terrible issues with immigrant absorption; high Gini coefficient – you know Economist, things like that.”

Seems to me some of the comments of blaming entitlement thinking for those who want something for nothing reek of failing to see “big picture”. If you’re going to work hard and sacrifice for something — say buying a house with a yard in a nice neighbourhood where you can raise your children — it sure helps if you don’t overpay.

And when I say “overpay” consider what US lenders offering sweet deals on mortgage payments used to call their customers: Joe Howmuchamonths. How provincial.

Actually for me personally, reading those comments don’t get me as riled up as a lot of posters here. Maybe it’s the effect of the first post about paying $300K for a East Van house while interest rate is 12% and paying $2700/month. On a monthly basis, $2700/month is a lot of money now or 30 years ago and it’s not easier back then. Granted if the homeowner kept renewing into lower interest rate then it definitely helps out with affordability.

Buying a house is never easy and lots of sacrifices are required in Canada for most people. The standard financial advice has been to pay down that mortgage from 30 to 50/55 and then spend the last 10 or 15 years before retirement putting the mortgage payments into your retirement fund. Obviously travel and vacations are supposed to be delayed until retirement.

So those comments have a point, if you want a house in Canada, you have to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, now or 30 years ago. The only difference I think is that now we are facing higher to dramatically higher interest rate risk, increases in taxes, inflation, lack of job security and career opportunities, and possible total disappearance of social safety net like CPP, OAS, etc as baby boombers suck every lack penny for the current systems while their children make less $$ and pay more for everything.

To qualify for a $240,000 mortgage at 12%, 25 year am, he’d have needed an income of about $100,000. Oh look, he paid about 3x income for a house. And 30 years ago, a salary of $100k was pretty fat. Any idea what $300k bought in East Van 30 years ago? I’m betting it was pretty swanky digs.

It’s kind of funny to hear CBC listeners telling people to suck it up. Not exactly what I’d expect.

I bought my first house for $170k, as far east in Maple Ridge as you could go, 12.75% interest rate.

Rates dropped, I moved to North Van and got a 900 sq. ft. house on a big lot for mid 200s. Same payment carried the new mortgage. Paid it off in under 15 years by scrimping and saving.

Say the mortgage was $220k at 11%. That would be about $2100 a month. For perspective I had seen, within the decade, interest rates at 21%, and had seen people lose a lot of money in real estate. It felt like a lot of money to go on the hook for, and I wasn’t sure it was a good deal Unlike the regular readers here I can only remember the past, not predict the future. We hadn’t put a decade of historically low interest rates and a doubling+ of RE appreciation under our belts.

Today that lot (the house was worth nothing) is probably worth a million. For the 2012 version of me to buy it at $2100/month I’d need about $600k as a down payment. That’s unrealistic, though. The $2100/month of 1990 is probably more like $3100 today. That reduces my downpayment to about $400,000.

There’s really not much question that prices are tougher today.

This is a great market if you want to cash out. If you’re in it to stay or you want to get in, it’s a tough game. Despite that, there are many people in the game and getting in the game. They are very aware of what is entailed – they’re the ones making the mortgage payments, after all. Asking them to be sympathetic to someone who can’t get in the game is probably a bit naive.

Rob -> “there are many people in the game and getting in the game. …. Asking them to be sympathetic to someone who can’t get in the game is probably a bit naive.”
…
I don’t see bears asking for sympathy, but for reasonable value.
(And, yes, I know it’s hard to agree on what ‘reasonable value’ is).

“I don’t see bears asking for sympathy, but for reasonable value.”
Maybe bears aren’t asking for sympathy, but the CBC story is predicated on presenting a sympathetic character who can’t get what he thinks is reasonable. We can agree on that, right? If it’s not playing the sympathy card (I make medium income and can’t own in East Van and don’t want to commute – how is this right? Is it too much to ask that I be able to buy for less than everyone else is willing to pay? Is that fair?) the story really doesn’t have any legs. You’ve got at least one commenter who sounds pretty much in tune with that.

“(And, yes, I know it’s hard to agree on what ‘reasonable value’ is)”

I don’t agree. We know what it takes to be in this market, and we know what reasonable value is. They’re two different things. That’s why I don’t sell investment property here based on traditional metrics anymore. It can’t really be done. Look at the numbers I shared for my house. If it was reasonably valued I could rent it for about $10,000 a month. Any takers out there?

Recognizing that we’re out of whack with fundamentals only goes so far, though. Low rates don’t explain demand. And, frankly, the idea that there is mass hysteria/stupidity hasn’t really explained it either, has it? People who are smart enough to have money want Vancouver real estate. They’re competing with each other enough to keep prices high.

The thing that keeps confounding me is how we continue to avoid a correction (and we do, as, again, I think we can all agree). We’ve seen a US housing meltdown, a global economic meltdown, a president who campaigned on hope and change get saddled with a piss poor economy that may well cost him his job (and if he loses to one of the current GOP hopefuls then you know the economy in the US is really bad), Iceland going bankrupt, Greece effectively going bankrupt, the Eurozone in trouble – the list goes on and on. Yet Vancouver is still hanging in.

You know that you pay a 1/3 of a million bucks for an acre on septic with well water and a tear down 20 minutes east of Mission? There’s nothing reasonable about that. But, what on the horizon can you see that’s going to change this? Seriously. The “bears” have been looking for and predicting a bursting of the bubble since 2005. I’ve been looking for a correction since, what, 3 or 4 years ago. Remember all those guys who used to say that we lagged the US by X number of months, and they knew it because they had studied it, and it was coming here, blah blah blah?

I remember Mark Allan Angel (yet another evil realtor) doing a video probably as far back as 2005, indicating that he was astounded by local prices and also expected a correction. Never happened. I know people who sold 5 years ago, expecting to buy back in after the inevitable crash. They need a big crash now.

I’d like a viable explanation.

Haven’t seen one that holds water yet.

Another thought before I move on. IN your more recent post you paint the picture of the people buying in Calgary and watching their house drop in value so that it costs them $60k to get out. And you point out that they can’t mail keys back because we have recourse mortgages. That means (and correct me if I’m wrong) that they stay and pay unless they get kicked out. And, if the bank is looking at kicking them out and taking the $60k loss themselves or letting them stay and accepting payments then the bank may hesitate to foreclose. In fact, the bank may just slash rates again (wait, BMO just did that, right?) Like I’ve said for years now, the listing presentation that goes “Great news! You can sell your house today and lose money!” isn’t too convincing.

Rob -> “the idea that there is mass hysteria/stupidity hasn’t really explained it either, has it?” … “I’d like a viable explanation.”
…
Explanation: We are in a massive speculative mania in Vancouver (and BC) RE.
That explains everything that we see; everything.
What about the market is not explained by a speculative mania?
Show us one thing. (“We haven’t seen one that holds water yet.”)
Also, Occam’s razor: far and away the most elegant way of explaining everything about the market is that it is a speculative mania.
Manias can go on for a long time, despite recent commenters here claiming that duration alone makes this a non-mania.
Yes, many of us have been wrong for years… so what? It’s still a duck.

The reason I don’t buy your argument vreaa is that there are many, many properties that are within reach of the first time buyer if they leave the city and settle for a condo. Why does everyone assume that they should be able as a first time buyer to buy a sfh in the city. I just don’t get that but you hear it over and over and over. Yes I hate the suburbs too as they are just vast wastelands of nothingness but if you want to own that’s where you need to go.

reality check -> Those condos are all proportionally overpriced, too.
All RE vaguely associated with Vancouver is 2 to 3 times overpriced.
Your argument is just another version of the “suck it up and do what it takes to buy, wherever and whatever you can”. You are calling for people to forego all critical thinking.
Because some substandard box within an ‘x’ hour commute of the city is “within reach of the first time buyer” doesn’t mean that FTBs should simply go ahead and buy it. People are waking up, because our prices have gotten so obviously perverse. FTBs are saying “Hold on, why should a condo in New West cost the same as a Seattle SFH? This doesn’t make any sense”. And they are correct.
So, many folks are deciding that they don’t “want to own” in the “vast wastelands of nothingness”; nor do others want to uber-overextend themselves to buy into the city itself.
We just may have hit some kind of realization threshold. That’s the kind of thing that can end a bubble (without the help of interest rate hikes, etc).

[T]here are many, many properties that are within reach of the first time buyer if they leave the city and settle for a condo. Why does everyone assume that they should be able as a first time buyer to buy a sfh in the city.

Currently, a first timer is going to be paying more in interest alone every month than he’d be paying in rent. So he’s better off renting and investing the savings (principal, maintenance tax, etc.) to buy his desired home, UNLESS his condo in the ‘burbs is going to appreciate fast enough to make up the difference PLUS the sizable transaction costs he’ll be flushing away on that first time purchase. The entire concept that’s underpinning your argument — that you have to lever up and win with a starter home to get into the place you really want — would have been completely foreign to most everybody just 30 years ago. Until then, you rented for a while, then you bought a house, which you only sold due to death/divorce/relocation/unusual change in financial circumstances.

It should be obvious that, unless you’re saving A LOT outside of your mortgage, paying down your mortgage MUCH faster than average, or bought in an area appreciating significantly faster than the downtown area of your dreams, your appreciating burbdo isn’t going to get you any closer to that appreciating urban SFH which at least one of your condo neighbours also covets.

The only people that I see who are “waking up” as you call it are the people who post on this blog. Most people have come to realize that Vancouver is still cheap by world standards. You try buying a sfh in the central core in another desirable city (and I don’t mean Seattle because it is not desirable) for the prices on the west side or east side of Vancouver. You can’t. You may not find Vancouver desirable but unfortunately for you many people do.

Vancouver is an international destination and you need to use international tools to assess affordability, demand, incomes, etc.
I always get a chuckle out of the price to income ratios that state 11x annual income. It has nothing to do with the real data on the person that just bought the house.

reality check -> “and I don’t mean Seattle because it is not desirable”
formula1 -> “I always get a chuckle out of the price to income ratios that state 11x annual income”
—
You guys are sassy beyond belief.

Rob -> “That’s why I don’t sell investment property here based on traditional metrics anymore. It can’t really be done. Look at the numbers I shared for my house. If it was reasonably valued I could rent it for about $10,000 a month.”
—
Ergo, speculative mania.

citing examples of people that have been wrong about timing isn’t a credible thesis; though it sure is a handy little device that will work right until the very end. many of the best and brightest have been famously right about outcomes and wrong about timing. they mitigate by avoiding situations where the consequences of a miss are important. i haven’t seen a viable explanation why there won’t be a deep, sustained reversal, but have seen many that won’t hold water. pulling the pin on a grenade and saying this hasn’t blown up yet works for a while too.

VREAA:
Just because an explanation makes sense to you doesn’t mean it’s convincing. And if I don’t buy your explanation, but lack one of my own, it doesn’t make yours correct. However, if you repeat it enough times and put in bold font it does become more convincing. (No, wait, let me re-phrase that: it makes you sound more like Rick Santorum).

I think we can agree on reasonable value, and we aren’t getting it here. Ergo I don’t sell investments here based on reasonable value (not “ergo speculative mania). I still sell houses to people who aren’t speculating. They are aware that they may be underwater at some point in time. They are also aware that they might not be.

The majority of people buying aren’t speculating. You could try to make an argument that the speculators are the ones driving the market, but I haven’t seen that argument made very convincingly (I haven’t read everything you’ve posted, so if you’ve made that argument point me to it). I don’t for example, see a ton of speculators flipping houses these days. The numbers make that pretty scary for the average bear.

chubster:
“citing examples of people that have been wrong about timing isn’t a credible thesis”

The argument seems to be that because we’re divorced from fundamentals (which we agree on) we must be in a bubble, it must be fueled by speculation, and it will end by returning to fundamentals the way it always does.

The problem I have with that argument is that it convinces the choir, and ignores a lot of potential variables. If a 50% drop today gets us back to fundamentals in the burbs, why does a call for an 80% correction seem reasonable? Convince me.

“many of the best and brightest have been famously right about outcomes and wrong about timing” Nice label. I think that “best and brightest” actually arose from Kennedy’s Ivy League architects of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, the best and brightest local bears, by dismissing timing as an important issue, have left thousands of dollars on the table and counseled many to not buy property to their financial detriment. You can’t argue against that – history proves me correct.

Ralph Cramdown:
“Currently, a first timer is going to be paying more in interest alone every month than he’d be paying in rent. So he’s better off renting and investing the savings (principal, maintenance tax, etc.) to buy his desired home, UNLESS his condo in the ‘burbs is going to appreciate fast enough to make up the difference PLUS the sizable transaction costs he’ll be flushing away on that first time purchase”.

Correct. In most stable markets its usually easy to make an argument for renting a condo and buying a house.

“The entire concept that’s underpinning your argument — that you have to lever up and win with a starter home to get into the place you really want — would have been completely foreign to most everybody just 30 years ago. Until then, you rented for a while, then you bought a house, which you only sold due to death/divorce/relocation/unusual change in financial circumstances”.

That has not been my experience. Generally 2 to 3 houses between getting married and having the first kid and high school grad of the last one. Build equity, move up the income ladder, need more room, etc.

evidence against speculative mania is that a very small % of detached homes are resold 1-2 years after purchase by so-called-speculator.
My position is that nearly all detached homes are owned for the purpose of raising family (or past tense for empty nesters). I’ve not seen any evidence to the contrary.
If there is speculators in the market they’re taking the long approach

work that spin dude. if they’ve waited this long and still haven’t figured it out, maybe it’s for the best someone else gets the money. i’ll just tell them to mind the source of their research and counsel.